Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay | Page 3

soon began to steal forth. All of these lads belonged to families of wealth, so that at no time were they reduced to limiting their outfit. Anything that money could buy, and which prudence would allow to carry with them, was always at their service.
So the guns owned by Ned and his chums were of the latest pattern, and capable of doing good service when properly handled. The boys, who had been through campaigns in many parts of their own country, as well as over the southern border, and in foreign lands as well, and for young fellows who had not yet attained their majority, all of the scouts had experienced thrills calculated to make men of mature age proud.
And yet in spite of all this they were genuine boys, with warm hearts, and fond of practical joking. Seated around the jolly fire after disposing of supper, while the two guides attended to cleaning up, Jimmy entertained his mates with a series of rollicking songs, accompanied by Teddy on his mandolin, which he had somehow managed to smuggle along, in spite of a careful watch on the part of Ned, who did not wish to take a single article that was not indispensable, for he knew the gigantic task that lay ahead of them.
Jimmy has as usual been overboard during the late afternoon. It was not a voluntary swim the comical chum had been enjoying, either; these plunges never were, but it seemed as though Jimmy must lose his balance once in so often just while the canoes were negotiating through some wild rapids, and in consequence he had to make the passage clinging to the gunwale.
His red sweater was hanging on a bush to dry in the heat of the fire. It looked unusually brilliant as seen in the glow of the leaping flames. Jimmy was very proud of that same old sweater, which had been with him through so many campaigns that it showed signs of wear and tear. But though he had another nice navy-blue one in his waterproof clothes bag, Jimmy persisted in donning the ancient article every blessed day, in spite of the appeals of his chums.
Ned as usual was poring over his well-thumbed chart. Every day he marked the new ground they had covered, and very seldom had he found cause to doubt the correctness of the two guides. And whenever this had happened it turned out that they were right, and the map wrong.
"Well," Frank finally broke out with, "so far we haven't run across anything in the shape of a rival expedition, though Ned seemed to think in the start that was what would happen to us."
"I haven't changed my mind yet," observed the party mentioned, looking up from examining his chart. "We understood that the syndicate that is trying to unload this wonderful new mining tract they claim will be richer than Mesauba on Jack's father as a speculation, knew about our being sent up here on some secret mission. They could easily guess that we meant to find out if half of the big claim they made was true, and that on our report Mr. Bosworth would base any action he might take. Now it was to be such a tremendously big deal that under the conditions, if so be there was something crooked about the claims they made, you can understand that it would pay them handsomely to shunt us off the track, or else salt the mine, and make us think it would be as rich a proposition as their prospectus set out."
"But," interrupted Jack, "who could they get to do their crooked work away up here in this forlorn country, where we haven't run across a living being since we met that trapper going south with his winter's catch of pelts?"
"Oh! money will do lots of things," answered Ned. "Given a soft berth, with good pay, and plenty to eat, and scores of Indian half-breeds, timber cruisers, guides out of employment along the salmon fishing streams of the Dominion, and trappers loafing through an off season, would jump at the bait. There'd be plenty to enlist under the lead of a bold man hired by the syndicate; if, as we more than half believe, their claim is a great swindle which they mean to hang about Jack's father's neck."
"Francois says we will always have to be prepared, and as that is the motto of Boy Scouts all over the known world, it isn't likely to seem new to us," Frank Shaw remarked, a little boastfully it must be confessed, for having passed through so many strange happenings in times past had given him a touch of what Jimmy was inclined to call the "swelled head," though any one would have been justified for feeling proud of such